Research in France, were to start?

bon jour,

Perhaps one of you is able to give me some advice. I like to see if it is possible to find any information about the Koolhoven FK 58 fighter that was used in the France airforce in 1940. Several of these aircraft were built in France and during May/June 1940 these aircraft were flown by Polish pilots. After the surrender of the France force most of them were in the Vichy part of France. Is there an archive in France were they keep records of crashes or documents concern the purchase of these aircraft?
Any leads to such archives will be highly appreciated!!


Best regards,

Mathieu.

mathieu a écrit:

bon jour,

Perhaps one of you is able to give me some advice. I like to see if it is possible to find any information about the Koolhoven FK 58 fighter that was used in the France airforce in 1940. Several of these aircraft were built in France and during May/June 1940 these aircraft were flown by Polish pilots. After the surrender of the France force most of them were in the Vichy part of France. Is there an archive in France were they keep records of crashes or documents concern the purchase of these aircraft?
Any leads to such archives will be highly appreciated!!


Best regards,

Mathieu.

Hello,

Maybe from here:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/dominique.mahieu/index/fana/ia.pdf


It's a list of old "Fanatique de l'aviation" magazine contents.
There were an article from Harm Azewinkel, the dutch planes specialist about that subject someyear.

Regards.

PS: Of course you can also browse the famous usual russian site, if you're still don't know about it, for the beginning, and the list of sources quoted on the end of the page.

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fww2/fk58.html

Hello,

To complete : magazine "Avions" has published a three part article on this plane in 1997 No. 53 (August), No. 54 (September) and No. 55 (October).

best regards

Good morning,

You can ask these reviews from LELA PRESSE Website :
http://www.avions-bateaux.com/fr/catalogue-avions-catalogue_1_1_date_1997_2_4.html

2 pages to read, about the polish use (ref. of the book is in the picture) :



You asked for an electric switch on this forum, some months ago ... Did you find ???
The company still exists, but I had no time to contact ...

Have nice week-end ... Marc

Hi,

Thanks for your replies! At the moment I am working abroard but when I'll get home I'll search the sites and magazines you mention. Attached a photo of the France FK 58 factory after it was captured by the Germans.
@ Marc, yes it was me who asked for electrical parts made by Ragonot. In particular the fuseholders made my Ragonot are on my wish list. But here again, my non-knowlage of the France langauge is a disatvantage. I have tried to find a forum of vintage radios/equipment in france but didn't manage to find one. Does one of you know if there is any?

Best regards,

Mathieu.

Thanks for this picture !!!

Ragonot company still exsists : http://www.ragonot.fr ;

For a french tecnical forum, try http://www.aerostories.org/~aeroforums/forumtech/#form

Have a nice week ... Marc

Hello Mathieu,

Unfortunately, I don't know very much about your story, my knoledge is limited, but my passion isn't !

Anyway, if you need help with translations french <---> english, give me a PM, and I'll be glad to help !

Take care,
Ben

Hi Marc,

I have tried both, Ragonot and the forum you mention. But no result

Hi Ben,

Thanks for your offer! In a few days I'll send you an e-mail.

Attached 2 photos, one of the 2 wing spars and one of a stabilo of a FK 58. These parts were donated by the Germans to the university of Delft. It is not known if these parts were built for the Dutch or the France order.
Would be great to know if any FK 58 parts still exist in France.
A nice link: http://koolhoven.com/scale/flightsimulator/

Best regards,

Mathieu.

Hi Mathieu,

The FK 58 is also studied in the Hors-Série n˚ 7 of Avions ("La chasse française inconnue de Mai-juin 1940").

If you'd like to, i can search in it some informations.
Do you search any informations particulary?

Best regards,
Pierre

Hi Pierre and other,


Thanks for your reply. Any help is always welcome! I am looking for al possible information, but from what I understand one FK 58 crashed and it would be great to find out more about this FK 58. Perhaps we might be able to find the crash location. Perhaps you or anyone else know what happened to the archives of that time? Did the pilots who fought in France write reports about there flight? Or was there to little time to write them? And if they wrote such reports, what was the procedure of such reports? Am I correct that the FK 58 flew with CG 145? Or were they also used by other units?

Is there, in general, much left of the France airforce of those days? I know of a Caudron 714 that is under restoration, but what about all those other famous France designs? Iam sure that there is more than we expect, I have seen some remarkable things emerging concern the Dutch airforce of that time. Drawings, aircraft parts, unknown photos and many reports! And until now I managed to get 3 instruments which were manufactured in France for my Fokker G.1 project. Some more information at: www.fokker-g1.nl

Best regards,

Mathieu.

Hi Mathieu,

I have a Hors-Serie on the GC I/145 too, i will look if any FK 58 is mentionned.

Before looking in my documentation I haven't for the week, I can told you that the FK 58 wich were buy by France has many, many problems.
At the beginning, these 50 planes were bought by France to Netherdlands in order to be use in the french's colonies.
Finaly, they never leave France: they were used in the "Defense Aérienne du Territoire" squadrons (a concept where factories or others strategics sectors where protected by one squadron for each of these), near Marseille and Clermont-Ferrand. They never fighted, because of their poor performances.

Paul Sthelin said that "The only way to make fly these flying coffins was to maintain full power, even for landing", in the magazine Icare Revue de l’aviation française, n°55 (year 1970)
Effectively, these planes had many problems (in the case of the french ones):
-no oxygen mask
-sometimes the machine guns weren't checked
-the training for pilots on this plane was difficult (one plane was crashed during training)
-the lack of good performances and power-fire (only 4 machine-guns of 7,5mm)
-problems in radio
-a landing gear wich was too fragile.
(These informations were taken from the article:
COMAS, Matthieu. (1998). "Les patrouilles DAT". Avions, hors-série n°7 : La chasse française inconnue: mai-juin 1940, p. 18-33.)

I hope i'm clear, because I'm good but not excellent at english! If there's one thing which isn't clear, tell me!
I will look in my Hors-Serie for much informations.

Citation :

what about all those other famous France designs

There were many, because French Air Force was under restoration, so old planes were besides modern planes. But the moderns were often only at the beginning of production; so not only they were not enough, but also they had technics problems, due to the stage of starting production.

For a list of french planes used during the war, you can see this list:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_avions_militaires_de_la_Seconde_Guerre_mondiale#Avions_Fran.C3.A7ais

For the reports, french pilots had to write a report for each mission. I don't know about all the reports, but most of them must be at the "Service Historique de l'Armée de l'Air" (Air Force Service of History) near Paris, at Vincennes.

I think more people here can tell you about crashes and reports

Best regards,
Pierre